Chapter 18
Skywing Palace
Oleander was very, very confused. When she had first been captured, she had not known what to expect. However, of all the things as could think of being chained to a silver tree with a ridiculously thin chain next to a Rainwing she had never meet, was not at all what she expected. Granted it could be worst, she could be chained up on the prisoner towers and forced to fight in the arena, but then Oleander would have been with her friends at least and not with these semiconductors Rainwing who she did not know. However, she did learn that the Rainwing has much more alert than Oleander had thought when the Rainwing killed an Icewing in the arena, which had very much surprised Oleander.
"Would you stop staring," the strange Rainwing hissed, making Oleander realize she had been staring at her companion for a long time, while her thoughts were elsewhere.
"Sorry, I was lost in thought," said Oleander looking away, and towards the arena was the blue Seawing Dragonet of Destiny as fighting an older green Seawing, called Gill.
"What is your name?" asked the Rainwing in a low voice to not alert the Skywing queen that they were awake.
"Oleander, what is yours?" asked Oleander
"Glory, who are you?" answered the newly named Glory
"A Rainwing like you," said Oleander, "if you don't mind me asking, but what are you doing with the 'Dragonets of Destiny'?"
"I was a last-minute replacement for the smashed Skywing egg," answered Glory, "one of our guardians stolen me from my parents in the Rain Forest."
"Your Parents?" asked Oleander confused
"Yes, my parents," hissed Glory, "and I am planning on getting back to them as soon as possible."
"Um, you don't know much about Rainwings, do you," asked Oleander as delicately as she could.
"No," answered Glory, "all the guardians told me was that they were a lazy and no good tribe who are unworthy to be called dragons."
"Wow," said Oleander, "that is harsh if unfortunately, somewhat true."
"What do you mean?" asked Glory, disappointment seeping into her voice.
"Well, we spend most of our time sleeping or eating," answered Oleander, "we have different but equally incompetent queens every month. Queens do not even care if their subjects disappear right under their noses. Also are parents do not care about their eggs, they just drop them in the hatcher and never see them again. The eggs are checked on every couple of days by the minders."
"You don't guard your eggs?" squeaked Glory her scales going through various different colors.
"No," sighed Oleander, "it is one of our many failings. So, I am very sorry to say by, no one is missing you, or probably even noticed you were gone. I am sorry."
"Oh," said Glory looking crushed, "so no one even knew I was gone?"
"I am sorry," said Oleander genuinely apologetic.
"It is okay," said Glory trying to make it seem like she did not mind, "it is not your fault."
"Sometimes," said Oleander gently pointing Glory with her snout, " good friends can be far better than any family."
Glory smiled at Oleander, feeling slightly better although she was still crushed by the revelation of what the Rainwings were really like.
They remain quiet for a while watching the arena through half-closed eyes. The Mudwing and Nightwing Dragonet of Destiny were chained up next to Queen Scarlet. While the Seawing Dragonet was put in the arena. The blue Seawing, Tsunami, Oleander remember managed to defeated Gill and begged for his life to be spared. Queen Scarlet merely mocked her, however before Tsunami could kill Gill out of anger, he miraculously spoke throwing the queen's claims of cowardice right back at her. This enraged the Queen who order that Gill be returned to his prison. Then Scarlet stupidly tried to get Tsunami and her Nightwing friend to fight each other, which cause Glory to snort quietly under her breath. As Oleander predicted they refused to fight and merely hugged each other, seriously what did Queen Scarlet expect. Then things got interesting as a large group of the Nightwings, who had held her captive, arrived to rescues the Nightwing Dragonet of Destiny, but left Nightshade to be killed in the arena. Then the pompous Nightwing leader, Morrowseer, Glory whispered to her, order that the Icewings be killed.
"Frostbite!" Oleander hissed rearing up on the silver tree, fearing for her friend's life.
"Quiet," hissed Glory pulling her back down.
Before Oleander could protest or shake Glory off, the chains and wings binders of all the prisoners fell off, releasing the dragons.
Both Rainwings froze for a minute, before Glory reared up, bared her fangs, and spat two long streams of black venom right at Princess Burn. Burn however saw it going and thrust Queen Scarlet in front of her before beating a hasty and rather undignified retreat into the palace.
Scarlet let out an earsplitting shriek, as she beat at her face with her wings. Oleander stared at Glory, no matter how many times she had threatened to use the venom, Oleander had never used it on any other dragon.
"What?" snapped Glory seeing the look on Oleander's face.
"We never use our venom on other dragons," answered Oleander
"Well, I just did," said Glory jumping down from the tree and towards her friends.
Oleander rolled her eyes and followed Glory while looking around for her friends as well. Looking up she noticed that the Nightwings had turned tail and flown away from the fight. Cowards. She noticed that the newly freed Nightshade was trying to follow the Nightwing.
"Nightshade!" she shouted jumping on her friend, preventing him from flying away.
"What is happening?" cried a strange-looking Sandwing, peering around confused and a little scared, "where is Starflight."
"The Nightwings took him," cried the blue Seawing landing on the next to the strange Rainwing.
"Sandstar!" cried Oleander, jumping off Nightshade and flinging her wings around the little Sandwing.
"Oleander!" responded Sandstar hugging her also.
"Not to say it isn't nice to see you all alive, but can we continue this somewhere safer?" asked Inferno flapping down followed by Slipstream, Frostbite, and Crane.
"Good idea," said Oleander turning towards Glory, "let's go."